Optical recording/reproducing apparatus, optical pickup, and tracking error detecting method

Abstract

An optical recording / reproducing apparatus includes an optical pickup and a control section. The optical pickup includes: a detecting section; an optical system that radiates light from a light source onto an optical recording medium as near-field light by a condenser lens having a numerical aperture of 1 or more, and introduces light reflected by the optical recording medium toward the detecting section; and a drive section that drives the condenser lens. The optical recording / reproducing apparatus performs control for recording and / or reproducing onto / from the optical recording medium based on an optical output detected by the detecting section of the optical pickup. The optical system includes a beam splitter that reflects both P-and S-polarized components of reflected light from the optical recording medium, and a separating section that separates the P-and S-polarized components reflected by the beam splitter. The detecting section individually detects the P-and S-polarized components separated by the separating section.

Description

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] The present invention contains subject matter related to Japanese Patent Application JP 2006-011329 filed in the Japanese Patent Office on Jan. 19, 2006, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to an optical recording / reproducing apparatus, an optical pickup, and a tracking error detecting method, which are used for so-called near-field optical recording / reproduction in which light from a light source is radiated as near-field light onto an optical recording medium by a condenser lens having a numerical aperture of 1 or more to thereby perform recording and / or reproduction. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] Optical recording media (including magneto-optical recording media) such as a compact disc (CD), a mini disc (MD), a digital versatile disc (DVD) are widely used as storage media for music inform...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0031] According to the present invention, a beam splitter that reflects both the P-polarized component and the S-polarized component is used, the P-polarized component and the S-polarized component reflected by the beam splitter are separated, and of the separated polarized components, the light intensity of a polarized component orthogonal to the polarization of light incident on the optical recording medium is detected, thereby making it possible to detect a signal corresponding to the distance between a near-field-light radiating section such as an SIL and the optical recording medium by means of a simple and efficient structure.

[0032] In particular, by using a Wollaston prism, a Glan-Thompsom prism, or a polarization splitting grating as the separating section, it is possible to construct an optical pickup or optical recording / reproducing apparatus by means of a simple optical system.

[0035] As has been described above, according to the present invention, when performing near-field optical recording / reproduction, it is possible to obtain an offset-corrected tracking signal by means of a relatively simple optical system configuration.

Problems solved by technology

However, at present, no consideration has been given to the method of correcting the offset of the condenser lens in the tracking direction as described above.

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